CROSSING THE UNTRAVERSED LIBYAN DESERT
SIDI HUSSEIN WEKIL, A REPRESENTATIVE OF SAYED IDRIS, HEAD OF TIlE SENUSSI
SECT AND A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR
He is seated before a tea tray. The white rock at his right is a loaf of sugar, from which
bits are broken off with a hammer, but if this implement is not at hand the tea drinker is apt
to pick up the lump and bite off his share.
obtain camels and partly through the fear
of men of other tribes to trespass on the
route between Jaghbub and Jalo, the
Zwaya and Majabra preserve. However,
I eventually secured a Zwaya caravan
going westward.
Two days' journey from Jaghbub, on
the way to Jalo, we came across a petri
fied forest. The big bits of petrified trees
are still used as landmarks on the way,
set up according to an age-old practice of
the desert.
It is customary when a caravan finds
small pieces of stone lying about along
the route to heap them up, to show that
some one has passed. Of course, tracks
in the sand are obliterated by the wind.
It is a wonderful sight sometimes, when
one has been trekking for five or six days
without seeing any sign of the hand of
man, to come across a pile of two or
three stones on the ground. It straight
way encourages one. The body of a camel
or even the skeleton of an unfortunate
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